Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/366

336 the establishment of the knights at Malta. There the miserable trade flourished without a check. When the demand was brisk, and the supply of slaves within the bagnio scarce, the galleys of Malta scoured the seas, and woe betide the unfortunate Moslem who came within their grasp. The war which they unceasingly waged against the Ottoman maritime power was not maintained purely for the glory of the struggle, or from religious conviction as to its necessity; they found other attractions in the strife. In thus gratifying their privateering propensities, they were swelling at one and the same time their own private fortunes and the coffers of their Order. Honour there was none; religion there was none; it had degenerated into a pure mercenary speculation, and the only excuse which could be offered for this degradation of warfare, lay in the fact that it was an act of reprisal. The northern coast of Africa was one vast nest of pirates, who scoured every corner of the Mediterranean, and whose detested flag always brought with it the horrors of bloodshed, rapine, and slavery. With such a foe as this, it was but natural that there should be but scant courtesy shown. Had the fraternity confined its efforts to the extermination of this noxious swarm, the historian need not have been very severe in his criticisms on its treatment of its captives. It is, unfortunately, a matter of fact that in their anxiety to keep their slave mart at Malta well supplied, the knights of St. John were by no means careful to discriminate between the piratical corsair and the peaceful eastern merchant, and that the latter too often had to endure the fate which should have been reserved for the former only.

There exists in the Record Office of Malta a letter from the English king Charles II. to Nicholas Cottoner, at that time Grand-Master, which bears upon this question, and clearly proves the traffic in human flesh then subsisting, and by which it appears that the knights were purveyors of slaves, not only to the king of England, but also to the monarchs of France and Spain:—

“Charles the Second by the grace of God of Great Britain France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith &c. To the most illustrious and most high prince the Lord Nicholas